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Call them “breast-obsessed” if you like, but more than 3500 years ago, Egyptian physicians documented breast cancer on papyri that survive to this day. Some authorities claim that these documents could date back much earlier than that. A key entry describes “bulging tumors of the breast that have no cure.” From Hippocrates on, causes of the disease were proffered by the leading minds of the day. These would include excess of black bile; lack of sexual activity; overly vigorous sexual activity; depression; childlessness, and sedentary lifestyle. Famed French physician Henri Le Dran was among the first to advocate surgical removal...

LONDON (Reuters) - British scientists have for the first time used regenerative medicine to fully restore an organ in a living animal, a discovery they say may pave the way for similar techniques to be used in humans in future. The University of Edinburgh team rebuilt the thymus - an organ central to the immune system and found in front of the heart - of very old mice by reactivating a natural mechanism that gets shut down with age. The regenerated thymus was not only similar in structure and genetic detail to one in a young mouse, the scientists said,...

Researchers at Stanford University have designed a new technique that may soon make this a reality. Tumours are called 'solid' or 'liquid' based on where in the body they grow. More than 80 percent of all cancers are caused by solid tumours that grow as a mass of cells in particular organ, tissue or gland. The new technique called CAPP-Seq (cancer personalised profiling by deep sequencing) is sensitive enough to detect just one molecule of tumour DNA in a sea of 10,000 healthy DNA molecules in the blood.

CONAKRY (Reuters) - An angry crowd attacked a treatment center in Guinea on Friday where staff from Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) were working to contain an outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, forcing it to shut down, a spokesman for the medical charity said.

The emerging process of 3-D printing, which uses computer-created digital models to create real-world objects, has produced everything from toys to jewelry to food. Soon, however, 3-D printers may be spitting out something far more complex, and controversial: human organs. For years now, medical researchers have been reproducing human cells in laboratories by hand to create blood vessels, urine tubes, skin tissue and other living body parts. But engineering full organs, with their complicated cell structures, is much more difficult. Enter 3-D printers, which because of their precise process can reproduce the vascular systems required to make organs viable. Scientists...

There are a number of obstacles Americans will face this year related to access to affordable medicine. One of the most troublesome involves Section 708, a portion of the FDA Safety and Innovation Act (S. 3187) passed in 2012. Section 708 requires the Secretary of Health Human Services (HHS) to establish rules regarding the seizure and destruction of imported medicines valued at $2500 or less. The proposed rules are set to be released on April 18. A minimum of 60 days review and comment period will follow. During this time, RxRights intends to mobilize our 75,000 members to respond on...

Washington (AFP) - One in four American adults over 60 being treated for high blood pressure could go off their medication under recent guidelines issued in the United States, a study said Saturday. The changes, which stirred controversy in the medical community, could mean nearly six million may no longer need drugs to control their blood pressure, Duke University researchers said in the Journal of the American Medical Association. The findings are the first to analyze the impact of 2014 guidelines that raised blood pressure targets to 150/90, instead of the previous goal of 140/90, in adults age 60 and...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)NORTH ADAMS, Mass. – After 129 years, North Adams Regional Hospital is shutting down. Hospital workers were informed of the decision on Tuesday. Around 530 people will lose their jobs. The decision to shut down comes as the hospital files for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. It also affects the VNA & Hospice, along with the Northern Berkshire Healthcare Physicians Group. Current patients will be transferred to other facilities through April 4. The emergency room will close on Friday. “In the six years that I have been on the board we have investigated every possible avenue and exhausted all options as we...

You won’t read about the International Classification of Disease (ICD) on TMZ or hear it discussed on The View, but it has the potential to be an unpleasant October surprise in the health care world. It is a list of codes that physicians and hospitals use when billing insurance companies. These codes cover all manner of medical diagnoses for diseases, conditions, and injuries. The first version of the ICD appeared in 1946, with periodic revisions since. Six months from now, on October 1, the latest version, the ICD-10, will be implemented in the U.S. We are late to the party,...

Doctors feel a "deep sense of outrage" at the failure to grant them a 1% increase in basic pay, the head of the British Medical Association has said. In a letter to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, Dr Mark Porter urged the government to reconsider the decision. Many NHS staff will get a 1% rise, but those receiving automatic "progression-in-job" increases, "typically worth over 3%", will not get the 1% as well. The government said a 1% across-the-board rise would cost jobs. The Consumer Prices Index (CPI) measure of inflation is currently at 2%, and the NHS pay review body had...

ACA Grace Period Rule Could Put Physicians at Financial Risk Mark Crane March 19, 2014 Physician practices could be put at financial risk because of a little-known rule in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) that provides a 3-month grace period for consumers who do not pay their premiums on time, several national medical organizations have complained.The rule, published by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), grants individuals who purchase subsidized coverage through the state insurance exchanges a 90-day grace period before their coverage is cancelled for nonpayment.During the first 30 days of the grace period, insurance companies are required to...

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the British Heart Foundation have found there is actually no evidence that confirms changing the type of fat you eat from "bad" saturated to "healthier" polyunsaturated cuts heart risk. The researchers analysed data from 72 unique studies with over 600,000 participants from 18 nations and found total saturated fatty acid, whether measured in the diet or in the bloodstream as a biomarker, was not associated with coronary disease risk in the observational studies.

Last year Connecticut state senator Ed Meyer introduced a bill to create “physician-assisted suicide.” It failed, but this year he and state representative Elizabeth Ritter are trying again. H.B. 5326 would permit a competent person who is suffering from a terminal illness to “request aid in dying” through administration of prescribed medication. The bill is an affront to human life generally, but especially to elder or infirm adults and disabled individuals. For Connecticut citizens who respect life, it is unconscionable. The bill’s proponents say that assisted suicide is the compassionate answer. But an article in The New York Times summarized...

The age of politicizing everything is here and President Obama's pick for Surgeon General is no different. Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy has been tapped to lead the charge when it comes to promoting public health with the full weight of the federal government behind him. He also has a history of promoting gun control, of slamming the Second Amendment and has publicly called guns a "healthcare issue" and public health threat. Dr. Vivek Hallegere Murthy is the president and founder of Doctors for America, which grew from the campaign organization that was called Doctors for Obama, started in 2008....

A pediatric cancer charity is offering to pay for 7-year-old cancer survivor Josh Hardy to receive lifesaving medication that could cure him of a potentially deadly virus. But Chimerix, the pharmaceutical company that produces the medication, is still refusing to give Josh the treatment he so desperately needs. In fact, a representative for the charity said he tried speaking with Chimerix CEO Kenneth Moch about Josh's case - but Moch hung up on him. **SNIP** Josh’s mother, Aimee Hardy, has appealed to Moch to grant Josh emergency access to the medication, but the company is refusing to make an exception....

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) today allowed marketing of the first device for the preventive treatment of migraine headaches (Cefaly, STX-Med). It is also the first transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation (TENS) device specifically authorized for use before the onset of pain, the FDA noted in a statement released today. "Cefaly provides an alternative to medication for migraine prevention," Christy Foreman, director of the Office of Device Evaluation at the FDA's Center for Devices and Radiological Health, said in the statement. "This may help patients who cannot tolerate current migraine medications for preventing migraines or treating attacks." The device,...

Report From the Panel Members Appointed to the Eighth Joint National Committee (JNC 8) FREE Hypertension is the most common condition seen in primary care and leads to myocardial infarction, stroke, renal failure, and death if not detected early and treated appropriately. Patients want to be assured that blood pressure (BP) treatment will reduce their disease burden, while clinicians want guidance on hypertension management using the best scientific evidence. This report takes a rigorous, evidence-based approach to recommend treatment thresholds, goals, and medications in the management of hypertension in adults. Evidence was drawn from randomized controlled trials, which represent the...

Today MarijuanaDoctors.com began airing a television commercial that looks to be the first ever marijuana commercial on a "Major Network". The spot began airing in New Jersey and is believed to be the first time that any major television network in the U.S. has allowed a commercial addressing the controversial subject matter and advertising the first ever medical marijuana service. The commercial will be on the COMCAST system and the networks that will air the commercial include: A&E, AMC, FOX, CNBC, CNN, COMEDY CENTRAL BRAVO, DISCOVERY, ESPN, FX, FOOD NETWORK, HGTV, HISTORY, and several others. With Comcast considered the largest...

Using a 3D printer, scientists have made an elastic membrane that closely mimics the outer layer of the heart's wall. The new membrane, which was described Tuesday (Feb. 25) in the journal Nature Communications, contains tiny sensors that can track the heart's temperature, pH and level of strain. The device could one day be used to treat patients with rhythm disorders in the lower chambers of the heart, as well as the rhythm disorder atrial fibrillation, the researchers said. Heart rhythm irregularities are a common problem, with one of the most well-known forms, atrial fibrillation, affecting 3 million to 5...

It's called Middle East respiratory syndrome, or MERS, after the region where almost all the patients have been reported. But the name may turn out to be a misnomer. A new study has found the virus in camels from Sudan and Ethiopia, suggesting that Africa, too, harbors the pathogen. That means MERS may sicken more humans than previously thought—and perhaps be more likely to trigger a pandemic. MERS has sickened 183 people and killed 80, most of them in Saudi Arabia. A couple of cases have occurred in countries outside the region, such as France and the United Kingdom, but...